1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to fabrication of stamps, and more particularly to a stamp image forming method and apparatus and a stamp-making apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image for a stamp is generally formed by relief engraving or intaglio engraving. The relief engraving represents a stamp image of interest in the form of positive dots corresponding to protrusions and blank portions in the stamp in the form of negative dots corresponding to recesses. Therefore, if a single dot matrix data is prepared for an image, dots in the matrix data may be thinned for forming the same image in a reduced size. In addition, when other images are to be combined with the image, dot matrix data representing these images may be simply arranged together to generate combined dot matrix data as desired.
Thus, when dot matrix data are prepared for generally employed images as standard data, a stamp having a desired relief can be readily made.
On the other hand, the intaglio engraving regards blank portions other than a stamp image of interest as images for plate making, and represents the blank portions in the form of positive dots as is the case of the relief engraving for representing an image. For this reason, dot matrix data comprising an intaglio frame and so on must be prepared for individual images in consideration of difference in the shape and size of a stamp itself and an intaglio frame, an image of interest to be engraved, a combination thereof, and so on. In addition, these components essentially depend on the tastes of individual users. It is therefore practically impossible to prepare all combinations of such components as standard data for making intaglio stamps.
Moreover, in intaglio engraving, unlike the relief engraving, recesses corresponding to extremely thin lines of an image are quite difficult to incise into a stamp surface. In other words, since it is difficult to incise such recesses in a sufficient depth, the recesses tend to be shallow. For this reason, when a stamp having an image formed of such thin lines is affixed, ink or the like in such shallow recesses may attach on an affixed surface so that the lines of the affixed image become thinner. Particularly, a stamp surface of a stamp body made of a flexible material, on which an intaglio is engraved is problematic in that protrusions corresponding to blanks other than an image of a stamp may extend to reduce the width of lines of the image as the stamp is affixed. Disadvantageously, the thinned lines would cause the affixed images to appear poor.